Oven-Baked Spinach Chips

I had Travis and Mackenzie over for crêpes at the weekend. We laid out a variety of fillings, including my favorite palate cleanser of lemon and sugar, and chomped our way through maybe twenty of the things. Yum!! One of the items left over from the feast was fresh baby spinach… and when Travis said he was leaving it here for me to use, I had a fleeting thought that I might try my hand at making chips out of it. So I did!!

Talk about easy. And scrumptious. I kept these simple, seasoning them with salt and pepper… but you can go to town and flavor them however you like: herbs, garlic powder, red pepper flakes, garam masala, parmesan cheese, blah blah blah.

There’s really not much to it, so here we go…

Oven-Baked Spinach Chips

fresh baby spinach leaves, rinsed and shaken/patted dry
oil of choice (I used sunflower oil, because it’s what I had within reach)
sea salt and fresh black pepper

Pre-heat the oven to 250ºF.

Place the spinach into a large bowl and toss with the oil. (Please be aware that a little oil goes a long way. I had one cookie-sheet’s worth of spinach leaves, and 1 dessert spoon of oil was more than enough!!)

Lay the spinach leaves out in a single layer on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. (If you have non-stick foil, that may or may not work here. But the leaves will definitely stick to regular foil and to a naked cookie sheet.)

Sprinkle with sea salt and fresh black pepper.

Bake for 15 minutes, and then check them every 5 minutes after that until they are crispy (mine took around 30 mins).

Allow to cool, then enjoy. Then make some more because you’ll be shocked at how quickly they melt in your mouth and vanish “just like that”!!

61 Responses to “Oven-Baked Spinach Chips”

This has nothing to do with the food and everything to do with your photography skills. I love the first photo of these little green guys!! It looks amazing, even though I’m not sure I would actually enjoy them…

I must admit that I’ve seen these spinach and kale chip recipes before, and I’m always nervous to try them. They seem kind of like something you really want to taste good because it’s healthy, but it’s just not as good as the kind made with potatoes. But perhaps I’ll give them a try, because if nothing else, it seems easy enough.

They definitely don’t compare to the chips made out of potatoes, that’s for sure!! But in an attempt to find healthy snacks, these are pretty good. And you’re right – since they’re so simple, they’re totally worth trying. Let me know if you become addicted!! 😀

I tried these tonight — they are so tasty! I am not a big fan of potato chips (give me fries any day…), but I love love LOVED these! I’ll have to be careful with the salt next time (I used Kosher salt because it’s what I had on hand and wayyyy over salted them)…my tongue hurts! Next time I’m going to try some truffle salt!

I made a batch of spinach chips to share with my readers, but my kiddo ate them all before I could capture a proper “after” photo, so i hope you won’t mind that I used one of your gorgeous shots and linked back to you!

I really wanted to make kale chips this afternoon but I only had a tub of baby spinach on hand, so I figured I’d google and see if anyone had ever had any luck with it. I just tried a pan full of it. My husband who only tolerates leafy greens because he knows they are good for him actually scarfed them down. I’m trying a second pan right now with no oil, just a bit of kosher salt. Curious about just how fat-free I can make these little suckers. And I agree with Harriet–your photography is lovely.

Sorry for the slow reply – I’ve been slacking big time!! To be honest, I don’t know how well they keep. Whenever I’ve made them, they tend to get eaten straight away!! Did you try making and storing them? I’d love to know what you discovered…

Ordered these as an appetizer in suschi place in Manchester, Mo, St. Louis County. Served with sweet & sour sauce for dipping! Incredible! Ate the huge heap all by myself and took a bit home for my family to taste. I put them in the fridge and Heated them back up with a few minutes in the microwave. Still tasted great. The spinach leaves wilted a bit but that was the only difference. Went back a few days later for another order! Now when I visit my family in St. Louis I am putting the roasted spinach place on my list of “go to’s”.

I’ve been baking spinach chips for a couple of weeks now, but I’m going to try your method tonight. It sounds much better than mine. I think I’ve been cooking mine too high. Sometimes I get burned chips – but I eat ’em anyway!

I’ve been making chips with kale, spinach and Swiss chard using your recipe and technique. They are even good mixed together when done. My fav seasoning is garlic salt with some red pepper flakes (Texas tastes!). After everything is perfectly cooled, they can be stored in a tight plastic container. I don’t know how long as they are usually gone pretty quickly.

I agree, the photograph is just gorgeous ! I was cleaning out the fridge this AM and have some baby spinach that really has to be used today. I am going to make this, salt-free for hubby, today and see how it goes over. I am thinking some garlic-infused olive oil might help, pepper and a teeny bit of salt. If anyone has any ideas for these w/o salt, let me know.

I adore kale chips and thought surely I could use other greens. And I happened upon this recipe. I’ll be trying them soon. I know I’ll love them…especially when I add a little Sriracha for the KICK. Yummm

I’m dehydrating spinach as we speak, along with my usual kale. The spinach was mature, so that’s an important distinction. Plus, using a dehydrator probably give you very different results. I hope to report back on my blog. Glad you’re giving spinach/kale chips a go.

My name is Ella and I’m just in the beginning stages of creating my very first online business/website and I’m looking for some images to use.

It is a website/business based on raw foods, diet/nutrition etc. so I’m contacting you to ask if I’d be able to use this image of the spinach chips?

It’s a beautiful photo! I would of course give you full credit for the images used should you be ok with me using them and I’d also provide you with a link to my site once I had posted any of them.

Do you have any more fresh produce / raw food imagery stored away? If so I’d love to take a look at it. I’d also be interested in finding a photographer I could work with/ use in the future for various random future veggie shots, if you’d be interested in this as well, please let me know!

I honestly had some trouble with eating this. I loved the flavor (I used EVOO) but I guess I wanted so badly to have something that crunched. I think that with olive oil, less is more. I barely used a teaspoon on 3 cups of spinach leaves. It left a film on my pallet. This was still a simple and lovely recipe. I may need to try it on a thicker leaf for that crunch I desire.

I love these things! I am on a diet where I am trying to avoid all oils however, and naturally the spinach chips are sticking to the pan really bad. When I try to get them off, they crumble. I tried foil but they stuck to that as well. Does anyone have any suggestions for me??

I know this is an old post but I was hoping to see if anyone else has problems with them crumbling? Mine were falling apart as I was taking them off the pan. They are tasty but I would like to see if I am doing something wrong.

The times mine have crumbled, it’s been when I’ve left them in the oven a little too long – I guess they dried out too much and had no moisture left to hold them together. You could try pulling them out of the oven sooner… or maybe try cooking them on a slightly lower temperature. Let me know how you get on if you try them again.

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[…] organic spinach is super easy to find so I normally have at least 2 bags in the house weekly. So spinach chips it was! They turned out great – super crisp and practically melted in my mouth. The […]